Sophisticated poker bot
developed at Carnegie Mellon

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 , InfoPowa

VNUnet reports that US boffins at Carnegie Mellon University claim
to have created a smart learning program that can play a winning hand
of Texas hold 'em.

Professor Tuomas Sandholm and graduate student Andrew Gilpin are behind
the game theory program that will compete in the Computer Poker Competition
on 16-20 July in Boston run by the American Association for Artificial
Intelligence.

The poker robot, called GS1, is not yet able to beat the best human
players. However, it has outperformed the two leading 'pokerbots'
in playing heads-up, limit Texas hold 'em in tests at Carnegie Mellon
earlier this year. Both of GS1's opponents were commercially available
programs that, like other pokerbots, incorporate the expertise of
human poker players.

GS1, by contrast, develops its own strategy after performing an automated
game theory-based analysis of poker rules.

Sandholm and Gilpin have since developed an improved version of their
program, called GS2, which will compete in the competition.

Much as computer chess was an early test of artificial intelligence,
computer poker has emerged as an even greater challenge.

Unlike chess, where the status of all of the chess pieces is known
to both players, poker forces players to make decisions based on incomplete
information. "You don't know what the other guy is holding,"
Professor Sandholm explained.

He added that the sheer number of possible combinations of cards dealt,
cards on the table and bets in two-player Texas hold 'em makes it
impossible for even the fastest computers fully to analyze every hand.

This element of uncertainty, and the vagaries of luck inherent in
randomly dealt cards, make poker a better test of artificial intelligence
than chess, according to Professor Sandholm.